The long street market was bustling with crowds.
A young girl, draped in burlap and dressed in white, slumped weakly to the ground, covering her face with a handkerchief, tears streaming down her face, sobbing uncontrollably.
Its sound lingered, echoing through the air, its mournful melody fading away long afterward.
In front of her lay a damp, muddy, and mostly rotten straw mat.
Just getting close, you can smell the strong, musty smell of moss on the mat, which is almost nauseating. No one would doubt that it had been buried in a mass grave for ten years and dug out by someone.
A human-shaped creature was lying on this tattered straw mat, its face obscured by a white cloth covering its entire body.
"Selling myself to bury my father! Passersby, please take a look. My father just died, still warm! Not 998 or 888, small business, honest and fair, one hundred taels of silver to take home! Ten times the money back if it's fake!!"
As the saying goes, to look pretty, one must wear mourning clothes. Her adorable and petite figure did indeed attract many idle hooligans and playboys who stopped to try and harass her and take advantage of her.
As soon as they heard her shout, a whole bunch of them collapsed.
"Holy crap, sis, so you were selling your dad's corpse after all this time?"
"Your business... needs to change its sales pitch to 'selling your father for money'."
"Good heavens, the capital city truly lives up to its reputation as the capital of the emperor's rule. They even sell dead people on the street. I've never seen anything like it."
"One hundred taels of silver?! That's enough for a family of four to live comfortably for two years. You might as well just reach into our pockets and rob us."
...
"What's wrong?"
The young man walking ahead stopped and turned to look at the absent-minded girl behind him.
Zhan Xinjia shook her head, trying her best to control the urge to join in the fun.
Hmm... Why does that shout sound so familiar?
Suppressing her chaotic thoughts, Zhan Xinjia took two steps forward and looked up at Shen Suqing, whose expression remained unchanged.
"Is Master Shen going to buy groceries? The market is so crowded, why don't I wait for you here?"
He was deep in thought and contemplation.
The vegetable stalls were indeed crowded and dirty, and young girls, being clean-loving, would inevitably dislike such places.
He was still a little worried about leaving such a lonely, amnesiac little girl on a strange street.
After hesitating for a moment, Shen Suqing squatted down slightly so that his line of sight was level with hers.
His tone was as serious as if he were instructing his own child.
"Recently, there have been many thieves in the capital. Even in broad daylight... Do not eat anything given by strangers, and do not follow anyone. Just stand here obediently and wait for me, understand?"
As he spoke, he took out a string of copper coins from his purse, bent down, and tied them tightly around the little girl's waist.
"If there's anything you want to eat, you can buy it yourself, just don't go too far."
Immediately afterwards, those beautiful hands deftly tied the red rope into a bow.
When he bent down, his sleeve brushed against her cheek, and when she was close to him, she could clearly smell the faint scent of ink and books on him.
Zhan Xinjia stared blankly at the handsome young man with refined features.
For some reason, besides her face, she now felt an itch in her heart as well…
Mr. Shen is absolutely the epitome of a perfect husband.
Seeing that the little girl was standing there motionless and silent, as if her brain had been taken away, Shen Suqing repeated himself.
"Do you understand? Answer me."
"I heard it! I heard it with both ears!!"
After responding, Zhan Xinjia twirled her skirt and squatted down in the corner, idly playing with the string of copper coins at her waist.
Seeing her obedient and sensible appearance, Shen Suqing finally felt somewhat relieved.
He raised his sleeve, intending to pat her head like he usually did with the stray orange cat at the alley entrance, but considering it was improper, he restrained himself and withdrew his hand.
"Ah Zhi, good child."
This was the first time he had called her name.
The two simple words he uttered sounded as gentle and tender as if they were pressed against his lips, his voice clear and melodious like melting spring snow, even more pleasing to the ear than the overtones evoked by the finest guqin.
Zhan Xinjia's ears itched from listening, and she felt unusually uncomfortable.
"Young Master Shen, why are you so clingy? You should go now."
Shen Suqing: ?
Shen Suqing: ...
Only after that handsome figure disappeared into the crowd and vanished from sight did Zhan Xinjia, still captivated by the man's beauty, stand up and walk towards the "stall" surrounded by people selling themselves to bury their fathers.
The woman in the white dress was still weeping. Her face was pale and her eyes were red. She looked like a frail, sickly beauty, yet she stood with her hands on her hips, arguing fiercely with the other person.
"You can't even afford a hundred taels of silver, what are you looking at? Get out of here! If I sell it for too little, my father will curse me on his seventh day after his death. You bunch of poor bastards, if you can't afford it, don't stand here blocking my business! Be careful, or I'll have my father take you all away!"
The crowd sighed and dispersed with mixed feelings, frequently turning back to point and whisper as they walked away.
"The world is going to the dogs."
"People's hearts have changed, and morality has declined."
"unbelievable……"
Zhan Xinjia was standing in front of the mat at this moment.
A shadow fell over her, and the impatient woman in the white dress instinctively waved her hand to shoo the customer away.
"Get out of my way, don't block my way from making money!"
"Wild geese fly west, moon shines."
Zhan Xinjia called out her name slowly and deliberately, without any expression on her face.
The woman in the white dress was taken aback at first, then looked up in disbelief, slowly revealing her innocent, white face beneath the white linen hood.
"Holy crap! It really is you, my darling! Waaah! Where have you been all these days? I've searched every burial ground in the suburbs but couldn't find your body. If you hadn't come back soon, I was even planning to hire an ox to plow the burial grounds again."
Zhan Xinjia: "..."
Zhan Xinjia resisted the urge to raise her hand and slap her across the face.
She simply kicked away the white cloth covering the mat with her foot.
When Zhan Xinjia finally saw that the person lying on the mat was a handsome young man who was lying more upright and peacefully than a zombie with his eyes closed, his eyes twitched, and his tone became a little strained.
"...Are you two playing with abstract concepts?"
"Brother, get up! Let's find somewhere else to talk!"
Yan Xiyue blushed and hurriedly pulled Yan Huishi, who was still dutifully playing the role of her father who had died young.
The boy sat up straight amidst the jeers of the crowd not far away, who were shouting "miracle doctor!" "medical miracle!" and "healing the sick!" He wiped the mud off his face and followed silently.
Zhan Xinjia: "Haha."
It turns out that people can actually laugh for no reason when they are extremely speechless.
Do the Emperor know that these two siblings, the Crouching Dragon and the Phoenix Chick, one a princess of the current dynasty and the other the Crown Prince, are selling themselves into servitude to bury their father?
After the three of them furtively pulled and tugged behind the wall of an empty alley, Yan Xiyue, sobbing and crying, grabbed Zhan Xinjia's neck and hugged her tightly, yelling loudly.
"Waaaaah, do you know how frantically we've been looking for you these past few days? Father and Mother won't let my brother and me leave the palace openly, so we spent two whole nights talking by candlelight before we finally came up with this idea!!"
Zhan Xinjia: "Haha."
It's hilarious that two people can't even put together a complete cerebellum.
When Yan Hui returned, she avoided his gaze somewhat awkwardly.
He cleared his throat, thus maintaining his dignity as the crown prince.
His tone was cold and arrogant, and his expression was indifferent.
“If you hadn’t run away from home first, why would A-Yue and I have resorted to such a desperate measure? Since there’s nothing wrong, hurry back to the General’s Mansion and don’t let Uncle Zhan and Aunt Liu worry.”
"That won't work."
Zhan Xinjia refused without even thinking.
She finally managed to shamelessly move into Lord Shen's place, but she hadn't even had a chance to seduce him yet.
After briefly explaining the current situation to the two of them, Yan Xiyue stared wide-eyed in disbelief, looking at Zhan Xinjia with a disappointed and angry gaze, and scolded her in a shrill voice.
"So you mean you got completely taken advantage of by a random guy you met on a rainy day?!"
"Tsk, is this what you call manipulating? Don't worry about it, I have my own rhythm."
Zhan Xinjia disagreed with the rebuttal, feigning profundity.
Yan Huishi, standing to the side, clapped his hands expressionlessly with an icy face, his disdain and sarcasm evident.
Zhan Xinjia rolled her eyes.
Having no interest in arguing with these two idiots, and calculating the time, Master Shen should be out buying groceries by now. Zhan Xinjia was eager to squat back in the corner and act cute, so she rudely pushed the two of them deeper into the alley.
"Go away! I finally got to have some fun, you two can go to another street and continue selling yourselves to bury your father. Don't worry about me, I'm having a blast out there, I'll come out and see you two again in a few days."
"By the way, you two better behave yourselves, or you might actually get handcuffed by the market supervisors."
Yan Xiyue was pushed along reluctantly, looking back every few steps.
Even from afar, you can still hear her aggrieved mutterings.
"Brother, I'm never playing abstract games with you again. First, nobody understands our humor, and second, it seems like my sister really thinks we're idiots..."
"Hehe, who cares? Since she's willing to try to please others, let's just ignore her. Let's go, Yue, let's go to the mass grave and return the straw mat to the skeleton we dug out."
Zhan Xinjia: "..."
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